Mobridge-Pollock setting up third state tournament trip

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Tigers have 21 wins so far

The Mobridge-Pollock recent volleyball tradition has spanned three seasons.

The Tigers qualified for the State A tournament in 2009 and 2010 and hope this season's success will springboard them to the state tourney in Sioux Falls this season as well.

The regular season began with 17 straight wins and the Tigers are currently ranked third with a 21-1 record. The lone loss was to Warner in the Central South Dakota Conference Tournament. This season, Mobridge-Pollock has lost a combined total of just eight sets. The Tigers are getting it done at the net.

We've been pretty aggressive up at the net, said M-P head coach Keri Bolduan. Our hitting has been good. We've been playing smart and placing the ball. If we're a little bit out of position, then we do a flop shot or roll shot which keeps them off guard, especially if Kass Keller does it. She's up there and she wants to swing hard and get the job done, so when she does her little flop shot, that helps a lot.

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Keller was a second-team all-state player last year. To make the offense go, teams need solid work from the setting position.

We have a really good setter. Callie Slater does an awesome job. She gets to balls that you don't think she can get to. She takes care of the ball and gets it to our hitters, said Bolduan.

With Kylee Kettering, Kady Pinney, Katie Heil and Cass Ulmer on the roster, the Tigers have plenty of hitters in addition to Keller. Bolduan points out two areas of improvement would be serving and passing.

We need to work on more consistent serving and passing, said Bolduan. We tend to pass about 60 to 70 percent to the target. We need to be up in the 80s and 90s if we want to be able to compete with some of the tougher teams, and so our setter doesn't have to run all over.

The players worked hard in the offseason especially on increasing their vertical jumps. The tallest players are 5-feet 10-inches. Keller has increased her jumping ability by 1 inches.

We're not real tall. We read the other team very well and time the jump very well, said Bolduan. They're a good bunch of girls athletic wise and they play with heart.

The Tigers are on the road tonight at Onida against Sully Buttes, but host Linton, N.D., on Tuesday. Linton finished second at the North Dakota state tournament last season.

Sports writer Deb Smith

Northwestern back in business

For the first time in more than 30 years, Northwestern will be represented at the state cross country meet.

The Wildcats, who have not had a program since the 1970s, qualified four individuals at the Region 1B meet in Webster on Wednesday afternoon.

We have a lot of young talent. We could just see that they were really striding in the distance area, said Kris Boekelheide, a volunteer who was instrumental in restarting the program this fall. A lot of these kids do 5Ks during the summer. We just could tell there was some talent there and it was time we got the program going.

Boekelheide, who used to compete in cross country as well as track and field at Platte and later at Northern, said the decision to have a cross country program was not made until a week before school started.

We didn't have any base runs in at all. The kids came in with nothing, she recalled. We literally had to start from the ground up.

As the season progressed, the runners started to put the pieces together and on Wednesday, the girls finished fifth as a team and the boys were seventh.

That is a big change from the first few weeks of the season.

Some had never been on a golf course, Boekelheide said. We were just kind of getting familiar with it. Now, we're getting into the swing of learning how to run as a team.

Boekelheide is already thinking ahead, wondering how well the runners can do once they enter a season with some training behind him.

These kids have talent, she said. I'm anxious to see what we can do next year, because we will have the summer to get into shape. They want to recruit more kids. This is exciting for them.

Sports writer Dave Vilhauer

More pink volleyball matches

Area schools continue to dedicate volleyball nights and matches to breast cancer awareness during the month of October.

&middot Aberdeen Roncalli has its Breast Cancer Awareness match tonight against Sisseton at the Roncalli Gym. Aberdeen Roncalli will also be involved in a pink night on Monday at Warner.

&middot Aberdeen Central will have Dig Pink matches on Friday against Yankton and Oct. 24 against Brookings. The middle school volleyball teams had a pink match earlier in the week and again Oct. 22.

Pink merchandise will be sold at the matches with the proceeds going to the Aberdeen Cancer Society program Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. The events are sponsored by the Central volleyball program and the Simmons Middle School Youth Power.